


The Prodigal's Legacy

by shan_love



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Child Death, Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Series, Post-War, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-08 21:29:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1956798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shan_love/pseuds/shan_love
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles about Miranda. Set Pre, During, and Post Series. </p><p>(Originally posted on: prodigal-legacy.tumblr.com)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'll Protect You

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of the tumblr prompt 'the first time the muse killed someone'
> 
> Also, it should be noted that all chapters will be posted un-Beta'd. So, yeah, any and all mistakes are mine. Feel free to point them out.

She’s been planning it for months, years, really; her escape, now with her sister in tow. Little Cassan- no, _Oriana_ , who looks so much like the pictures she’s seen of herself from that age it’s hard to believe she ever doubted their shared genetics. The baby girl is always smiling but that would change soon she thinks, she _knows_ ; after all, she used to smile then too.

She ducks behind an outcropping, heart hammering within the confines of her chest and she waits. With Ori snug in her carrier, far more protected than she herself is, she clenches her fist and feels her biotics swell with each deep breath.

He’d regret giving her those, one day. Not today, though; no, today father’s away on business and this might be her last chance before some terrible ‘accident’ befalls her and the household staff, if no one else, quietly mourns the eldest Lawson.

When she hears the footsteps, she nearly turns back because it’s one thing to write it down, to map it out, but it’s another to pull back your arm and, and-

"Hey! You’re not supposed to-"

Her arm swings on instinct, a crisp and deadly arc of cerulean in a midnight world, and she can’t do anything but watch with wide eyes as the guards neck snaps, his body crumpling under it’s own weight.

Her stomach twists and, for a moment, she thinks she’s going to be sick, clinging to the side of her father’s house as she takes in one deep, ragged breath after another.

But then Oriana, clinging to her chest, looks up at her with wide, trusting eyes, gurgling unhappily; no doubt she’d been disturbed by the suddenness of her carriers motions and the unusual sounds of the conflict. “It’s okay, Ori,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to the baby’s head. “It’s alright; it was just a…just a noise. You’re safe, I promise.”

As her small eyes close, soothed by the familiar sound of her sisters’ voice, Miranda finds her resolve once more.It doesn’t matter if she has to…to kill every guard on the estate, she will get Oriana out of here.

Gunmetal blue eyes as hard as steel rise as her fingers curl inward, pulsing with dark energy.

"I’ll protect you."

 


	2. Morals Be Damned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off tumblr prompt, 'Morals'.

Being a part of Cerberus didn’t strip her of her morals; Miranda knows what’s right and what is not. But, sometimes, for the greater good, morals must be pushed aside, bridges must be burned, and laws must be broken.

In the nearly twenty years that she worked for Cerberus, she was a party to countless unethical - and often _terrible_ \- things. Most people think these things, no matter that they were each committed with the ‘greatest good’ in mind, should weigh heavily on the biotics mind, that they should haunt her, torment her.

Very few of them think - and even fewer _know_ \- that they do. 

The thing is, to keep her sister safe, to keep _her_ greatest good alive and free, Miranda would do - has done - just about anything.

**Morals be damned.**

 


	3. Innocence Is Beautiful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off tumblr prompt, 'Innocence'.

Innocence is…something Miranda doesn’t ever really remember having for herself.

She’s told herself countless times over the years (though, admittedly, more so as she got older) that such things are unimportant, that innocence and naivete go hand in hand and Miranda’s never been the type to risk being happy if it also means being _vulnerable_

But even she know she’s lying.

If she believed that, truly, she wouldn’t have tried so hard to keep her sister safe from her father, where she could grow and learn and just _be_ , where her innocence could stay and grow and, gradually, yes, she _will_ lose it (maybe she already has, she’s _almost_ a woman now) but it will be on _her_ terms or, at least, far closer to it than Miranda’s own.

**Because _innocence_ is _beautiful_. **

**And it should be _protected_.**

 


	4. As I Walk Through The Valley (Of The Shadow Of Death)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off tumblr prompt, 'muse walks between the corpses after a tremendous battle. A drabble about their feelings.'

There are a great many children.

Beyond the all-encompassing horror of warfare, _that_ is her first - _only_ \- thought.

They aren’t _actual_ children, of course. Not always.

But there are many faces, too many, barely able to grow stubble. Too many with bodies not finished, that will _never_ finish, developing. Too many whose faces still bare a child’s roundness, who armed and outfitted as they were, should have been kept far from the battlefield. Who would have been, had there been anyone else to stand in their place.

There hadn’t.

The war had taken so many before they were ready to fight back in earnest, before the resources could be assembled in the form of the Crucible, before the fleets had come to Earth, to London, to end the fighting one way or another.

There simply hadn’t been anyone else.

Still, it seems the cruelest thing the Reapers could do, forcing the survivors to march through a seemingly endless sea of their dead.

Miranda can speak for no one else, but it certainly takes the edge off her own sense of victory.


	5. A (Not So) Terrible Idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off tumblr prompt, 'A drabble in which the muse is forced to fight together with someone they hate'

This…is a not a good idea.  
  
She’s not exactly sure how many times she’s said so in the last few hours but, _surely_ Shepard must have developed an issue with her hearing - or at the very _least_ her common sense - since Wilson’s treachery had set her, unfinished, on the galaxy. Because, _really_ , it’s the only explanation for this, this… _lunacy_.  
  
Pairing her with Jack, of all the people on the squad, of all _people_ in general; it’s almost like she _wants_ them to kill each other.  
  
Jack is erratic and bad tempered and _entirely_ too bloody stubborn for her own good, not to mention the fact that they hate one another and, more than once, have found themselves _literally_ at each others throats less than a minute from tearing into them.   
  
She wishes, briefly, that she was undisciplined enough to make proper use of this last chance to complain, to rage against the Commander’s decision with (not so) quiet insubordination. Much like a certain ex-Cerberus project slouched in the seat across from her who hasn’t _stopped_ complaining in that unbecomingly coarse fashion she so enjoys since they disembarked. (She has it on good authority that Jack hasn’t stopped complaining since the order was given, nearly four hours ago now, but she’d hate to think they have something besides a scar in common.)  
  
But it’s an unbecoming sound and she won’t sink to so low a level. Like any good second in command, she will shoulder this…indignity with the decorum befitting someone of her station.

**XxX**

This was a _terrible_ idea.

Jack is driving her _mad_ , snarling insults into her mouthpiece at every given (and created) opportunity, and the sound of her voice is _rapidly_ becoming the most abrasive sound in the universe.

As if dealing with her _presence_ wasn’t bad enough, she won’t even let Miranda _work_. Not twenty seconds into the meeting she insults their contact and, of course, everything goes downhill from there.

Now, no matter the oppositions firepower, she isn’t worried about their chances. The reason Shepard picked her for this mission was for her ability to _adapt_ , to get the job done no matter whether it came down to battle or wits.

She imagines Jack was chosen for her ability to effectively utilize brute force but she’s not _really_ sure that counts as a skill and, even if it does, it should only be used as a last resort for when things go horribly wrong. Which they shouldn’t have but, of course, do because the whole damn mission _started_ that way.

When she gets back to the _Normandy_ she’s going to _kill_ Shepard.

**XxX**

This…may not have been such an awful idea after all.

Yes, Jack is irritating and altogether too prone to violence (and sarcasm) for _anyone’s_ good but she has a ferocity in battle unlike anything Miranda has ever seen and there’s something…well, not _inspiring_ \- but not exactly uninspiring - about it, about standing, _fighting_ , beside it, beside her.

And, as the tide of the battle turns in their favor and it draws to it’s inevitably bloody end, Jack looks at her over her shoulder and grins. It’s a messy, animalistic thing, too wide and too _wild_ to trace it’s roots back to anything _other_ than blood lust. It shouldn’t make Miranda smile…but it does.She supposes, in the end, it doesn’t matter; they got what they came for.

**XxX**

When they finally step back onto the _Normandy_ she tries, with varying success, to ignore the wide grin the Commander fixes them both with as they disembark the shuttle side by side, for once (for the first time, really), not fighting.

So, fine, maybe it wasn’t a _terrible_ idea after all. Team building _is_ important and she can’t deny the added usefulness of knowing that, should it come down to it, she can trust the biotic to watch her back in a context that doesn’t involve picking the best place to stick a knife in it.

And she’s decided that, while she won’t _kill_ Shepard, a simple punch to the jaw will do them both some good.

She does, after all, have a reputation to protect. And there’s something to say about good, old fashioned hand-to-hand violence.

 


End file.
